


That’s the Easy Part

by Kate_Christie



Series: Fictober 2020 [2]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Episode: s04e15 Hunters, F/M, Fictober 2020, j/c - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26789452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Christie/pseuds/Kate_Christie
Summary: Fictober 2020 10/2/20: Star Trek: Voyager J/C Episode addition to Hunters. If that damn communicator hadn’t chirped...
Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway, Kathryn Janeway/Mark Johnson
Series: Fictober 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951720
Comments: 5
Kudos: 50





	That’s the Easy Part

“...but there was such a finality to that letter.” 

Air had somehow been sucked from the room when he had approached her, asked how Mark’s letter made her feel. The last thing she could afford to do right now was feel.

“What about yours?” She was deflecting and she knew it. It was one of her best skills, and it was the only thing keeping her afloat in the whirlpool of sadness and disappointment, churning impossibly with… hope.

Chakotay’s jaw clenched, muscles tensing for an instant before he broke eye contact and redirected his gaze out to the stars.

“The Maquis are gone.” Taking a step to the side, he disengaged from her completely and crossed to the wall of windows.

“Gone? Disbanded?” Kathryn turned, saw the slump of his shoulders, the fists he squeezed tight and released at his sides. Silence, icy and hollow, revealed what he was about to say before the word left his lips.

“Dead.” 

“Oh, Chakotay—“ the urge to go to him was overwhelming. 

“Killed nearly a year ago by a new ally of the Cardassians. The few who survived are in prison.” He faced her on that last word, his look an accusation. 

Starfleet must have court-martialed them. Schooling her voice, she stayed put, leaving the gulf of a meter between them.

“They were your family.” 

Blinking, he drew in a shuddering breath, forcing himself to stand tall, drawing his shoulders back until she could no longer see the physical effect of the weight deep in his chest. But from the flat tone of his voice, she knew the weight was still there.

“They were.”

And to think he’d been asking her about her letter with all this swirling right below the surface. He made her burdens lighter every day, but who did he have to lighten his? 

“Chakotay, have you shared this with anyone yet?”

“I told B’Elanna.”

“Good.”

“Are you kidding?” His voice rose well past his usual professional register, and she had to force herself not to step back. “She blew up, almost lost it in Engineering.” He ran a hand through the short spikes of his hair and the intensity ebbed. “Clearly I need to be more careful about how I go about telling people.”

“Maybe it would help to talk about it, work through how you feel before you have to share it with anyone else. I’m no ship’s counselor, but I like to think I’m a pretty good listener.” 

Instinct told her to make contact despite his outburst—maybe because of it. She reached out, fingers grazing the edge of his sleeve just above the ball of his fist, not sure where it might be safe to rest her hand. But just that brush of fingertips was enough—his fist relaxed, and he gripped her hand palm to palm.

Gaze still on the stars, he gave no indication he had heard her offer, standing silent and still, spine straight and unyielding. But his hand was warm around hers, and he gave it a tiny squeeze just before he opened his mouth to speak in a voice that was so low that to anyone else it would belie the depth of emotion underneath.

“I’m angry. Angry that I wasn’t there to save them. That I wasn’t there to die with them.” He found her eyes watching his expression in their reflection in the window, and held them. “As much as I’m Starfleet today with our crew, I was Maquis when I was with them. Their cause was my cause, and now it’s dead, too.” He turned to face her, eyes flashing as he finished, voice rising to a subdued crescendo. “For all I know, every Maquis on this ship, including me, will face a court martial if we ever do make it back ‘home.’”

Despite the anger radiating off him, he still held tight to her hand. So that was where she started, stepping in and sandwiching his hand between both of hers.

“Today more than any other day since we arrived in this quadrant has taught me that what’s past is past; what matters is who we are now.” Dropping her gaze to their hands, she dropped her voice, too. “And you, and the rest of the Maquis—the rest of this crew—are all _my_ family. I won’t allow this family to be torn apart. I can’t bring back the people you’ve lost, but I’ll do my damndest to keep from losing any more.” Chancing a look up at his face, she found him staring back, expression softer somehow. Tears she didn’t want stung behind her eyes, but she swallowed them down to finish. “Not here in the Delta Quadrant, and not when we get back home.” 

Part of her knew it might be an empty promise, a decision over which she would have no control, but Starfleet would have to court-martial her, too, if they wanted to punish her crew. Her heart felt heavy, as if the weight he had carried only moments before had shifted to her. But she welcomed the feeling, something physical to work against, to fight alongside him.

Chakotay’s dark eyes held her gaze, unwavering, searching, daring her to look away. She couldn’t even if she had wanted to. After a long silence, he was the one to break the moment, glancing over her shoulder to a spot across the room.

“You put his picture away.”

She hadn’t realized Chakotay paid attention to the knick knacks she kept in her ready room, especially close enough attention to notice Mark’s photo was missing. She turned to face the spot he was staring at, the one the photo had recently vacated, and dropped his hand.

“That was the easy part. The hard part is actually moving on—“ stepping away from him felt wrong, but she couldn’t talk about Mark with him so close, “—fully living in a world where there isn’t this person, this ideal, that up to now has driven me to get home.” Her mother and sister were still waiting for her, and she wanted to see them again. But something had shifted. Even thinking this way felt wrong, went against what she’d said from their very first days in the Delta Quadrant. “Don’t get me wrong, our mission hasn’t changed. Earth is still where we’re headed. The crew has family and friends waiting there, even if some people won’t be.”

Following her path, his voice sounded warmer, more like himself when it sounded just off her left shoulder. 

“But maybe along the way, we can take the time to appreciate what we have here,” he finished for her, placing his wide palm across the small of her back. She closed her eyes against the wave of awareness tingling up her spine.

And her communicator chimed.

“Kim to the Captain. Can you come to the bridge?”

**Author's Note:**

> Again, thanks to Alex. Double beta in one day is above and beyond. Thanks for reading whatever this is that comes out of my brain every day for the rest of this month.


End file.
